


The Company of Ghosts

by Empy (Empyreus)



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Books, Brothers, Dreams, F/M, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Incest, Kissing, Libraries, M/M, Maps, Memories, Reading, Sibling Incest, Sleep, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-02
Updated: 2005-11-02
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3255308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/pseuds/Empy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old ghosts bring old memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Company of Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I originally (and foolishly) intended to post this on Halloween, but the fictives did not agree. Something of a tug-of-war followed, and it led to me missing my imagined deadline. However, [](http://just-ann-now.livejournal.com/profile)[just_ann_now](http://just-ann-now.livejournal.com/) stepped in, sprinkled fairy-dust and granted me extra time.
> 
> This ficlet is unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine. It's a quarter to three in the morning and I'm so tired that I'm going cross-eyed, but hopefully I got rid of all possible errors.

The locking clasp was old and stubborn, and trapped the tender webbing between his fingers in its teeth. Faramir gave an annoyed grunt and licked the tiny droplet of blood away before he opened the book.

The tome had lain forgotten on a shelf in the library, and he did not know what compulsion had made him seek it out this night. He had walked past shelves overflowing with old parchment, stopping every once in a while to gently ease a slipping scroll back into place, and his fingers had skipped over the cracked leather binding of an old book of maps.

The parchment was old and brittle, the ink fading nearest the edges of the page even though the book had been closed for years. The penmanship, that of some unknown scribe, was elegant and clear, unlike some of the hasty scribbles in the old annals. He gave a little smile. His grandfather had been a more than able Steward, but his penmanship had been abysmal. The letters had crawled across the pages in slanted rows, and the nib had pierced the parchment more than once.

Grains of the fine drying sand still crackled in folds between the pages as he read on. He absentmindedly pulled the candle closer as the last of the autumn light waned outside the window. Occasionally the ink would be so faded he had to strain his eyes to make out all the letters, and as he struggled with a particularly difficult passage, he felt the light touch of a hand on his shoulder.

"Lay aside that book. It tires your eyes." The voice was patient rather than reprimanding, and he turned in his chair to offer his wife a small smile.

"Not the book, but the light. The autumn no longer offers enough light for me to read all through the night," he said.

Eowyn gave a smile, then leaned in to kiss her husband's temple. "There never was much use in arguing with you about your reading habits. All I ask is that you not sleep at your desk again." She lit another candle, taking care not to spill wax on the books lying open, then turned to leave the room.

Faramir twisted in his chair to look at Eowyn, feeling a pleasant flutter of love as he saw her stand within the circle of candlelight. The softly flowing fabric of her dress framed the slightest of curves at her waist, the only outward witness of the new life she carried. She caught his glance, held it as was women's wont, then gave another tender smile to answer his before closing the door behind her.

 

As he turned back to the desk, shifting the large book in his grip, his fingertips caught on a scrap of parchment tucked into the pages. Carefully setting the book down, he turned the pages until he found the marked spread. The makeshift bookmark denoted a simple map with few markings.

The bookmark itself was made of a markedly different parchment and stood out against the page. He gave up his fruitless scrutiny of the map and turned his attention to the carefully folded paper. He could see traces of the ink that had bled through, showing winding lines that could be nothing but another map. His fingers seemed uncommonly clumsy as he unfolded the parchment, and when it lay smoothed out in front of him, showing that it indeed was a map, he felt his heart twist inside his chest. The memory was stunning in its clarity, returning without conscious effort. He had drawn the little map as a child, painstakingly traced the borders of Gondor with his quill and tensed every sinew in his ten-year-old hand to keep the lines even. Boromir had sat by his side, smiling at his effort and moving the inkhorn away as his elbow threatened to tip it over.

"When you are Steward, Boromir, will you let me have a part of Gondor to myself?" he had asked, pointing to the southward curve of Ithilien on his self-made map. "Will you let me rule?"

Boromir had laughed, and then pronounced with as much dignity as he could muster: "I shall make you Lord of Ithilien, Faramir. You shall have the forests to hunt in."

"And now the forests are mine," he said aloud, waking from the memory. _Though it was not you who gave them to me. You never took your rightful place as Steward._

He stood and stretched, the weariness suddenly apparent. Folding the map up again, he placed it between the pages of the book, taking care to find the right place before placing the book back on the shelf. He stood regarding it for a few moments, then reached out to take it back down. Tucking the book under his arm, he snuffed the candles, leaving them on the writing desk as he could find his way through the short hallway that led to the bedchamber without the aid of a light.

He could not explain to himself why he had carried the book with him, and shook his head at his own strange deeds. Perhaps the morning would bring more clarity, he reasoned, placing the book on the table by the window. Sleep was weighing his limbs, and he fell into a deep sleep as soon as he had stretched out on the bed.

 

He woke suddenly, feeling as though he fell even though he knew his body was perfectly still under the bedcovers. The fire had guttered out, leaving warmly glowing embers in the hearth, but the moonlight sifting in through the drapes was yellow-pale and bright and told him it was not yet morning.

He had felt fingers brush across his face in a tender caress, so light it could barely be felt but still enough to wake him.

"Boromir?" he asked, his voice so weak he himself could barely hear it, and felt foolish for addressing the silent darkness, and with the name of someone long dead at that. He squinted at the dark masses of shadows that pooled in the corners out of reach of the moonlight, but saw nothing. He flinched as he felt the same soft caress once more.

"Faramir, my Faramir," whispered a frighteningly familiar voice, echoing out of empty air. Boromir's voice. The ghost-hands hands so gently holding his blushed face were undoubtedly Boromir's. "Mine alone," the voice went on.

Boromir's wraith hands brushed up the his nape of his neck, bunching his hair as he had always done in the grey past, when he was alive and not a ghost touching Faramir's skin with fingers of ice and smoke. Faramir voiced a weak protest, but all the same arched into the touch, anxious that even the faint rustling of the sheets would dispel the dream.

The hands wandered on, lining his muscles, and he fancied he could feel nails. Like cat's claws. Warg's claws, as regret seeped in.

"You never gave me this," he accused in a voiceless gasp. "You never..." He halted, shamed. "You never spoiled me."

_Never, Faramir. You were what I loved most._

The smoke-hands drew through his hair once more, and he canted his head back, lips hungering for a kiss. Hungering for the forbidden and poisoned. It was poison that made him thirsty, and no water would slake it.

"Kiss me," he mimed to the cold chamber. Had he spoken aloud, the voice would have been high and eager. A boy's voice. The same gangly youth who bit down on tears as his older brother rode out to battle.

Shadow fingers traced his features, cold and warm all at once, firm and frail. Like old times.

_Let me, little one. Let me._

A shadow kiss, one imagined, surely. If he kept his eyes closed, he could imagine the kiss, imagine how his mouth opened soft and pliant, and he could imagine the weight of hard hands on his shoulders.

 

The Rohirrim called ghosts dwimmerlaik, and deemed them foul and wicked, but this was his brother, not some grim murderer denied rest in his grave.

_Do you fear me?_

"No," he breathed, yet at the same time he shied from the spirit hands that pulled at him, twining into his hair to pull his head back.

 _You would have let me do whatever I wished, brother mine._ There was a hard pull at his hair. _All that is a wasted promise now._ Hands closed around his throat for a fleeting second, then he could feel palms sliding down his chest, cold like iced silk. _Why did you keep it from me? Did you fear me?_

He had no answer, and twisted restlessly. He did not know what he wished. Spectres were not real, and yet he could feel the cold hands and the lingering touches that all the same burned his skin. He turned his head, seeking something to anchor him in the present rather than the strange dream-time.

He could see Eowyn sleep next to him, and her bright golden hair billowed over bedsheet and pillow like a silent wave. It could anchor him, he thought; pull him out of the dream painlessly. If his fingers could curl into her hair, and if the frayed silk of it could brush his palm, he would be released into the world of the living. He stretched, his trembling hand so close to her, but the ghost did not relent.

_I would never hurt you, Faramir. Not then. Not now._

As the ghost released its hold, he felt as though he were falling anew. His breath was caught in his throat, his heart beating steadily but seeming all too loud. He let his hand fall to the side, and twined his fist into Eowyn's long hair, still careful not to pull it. The locks were golden, not raven black like his own or like that of the kin he had loved all too much in all the wrong ways.

He fell into restless sleep then, his hand still holding the tangled locks of hair like a child might hold a toy.

 

When he woke, dawn had just broken, letting him know he could not have slept for more than a few hours. As he stirred, Eowyn sat down on the edge of the bed and set her hand on his forehead.

"You dreamt of ghosts," she said.

"We all dream of ghosts at times," he said, sitting up.

"The roads are drowned in mist, as though a sea has rolled in to drown us," said Eowyn as she turned to gaze out of the window. She leaned on his shoulder, her pale hand seeking out his.

"If indeed it is a tide, then let it take your sorrows as it rolls out anew," he said. "Let it cull out the ill memories and take them." As he looked at her, it seemed her features wavered in his sight. Her clear blue eyes turned grey, and he blinked to clear his vision, feeling tears prickle at his eyelids. "Forgive me," he said. "These old ghosts bring old memories with them, it seems. When we were children, Boromir would tell me that the mist was truly a sea, an ocean of sweet milk to bathe in, and he would laugh as I tottered out to claim it."

"You miss him, do you not?" she asked, her tone mild.

"Not a day goes by that I am not reminded in some way of his passing, but it grows lesser and fiercer by turns. This past night--" Here he halted, unsure of how to continue. "This past night was not a pleasant one," he ended lamely.

"I know," she replied. "There was pain and sorrow on your face as you slept, and it seemed to me that you moved not of your own volition, but as if you were held by ghosts." She gave a small shiver. "I know not if what I saw was reverie or truth, and I dared not wake you."

He found no words, and only clasped her hand tighter. Then he had not imagined the strange haunting, he reasoned.

"Perhaps not all ghosts are evil and to be feared," he tried, "though they unsettle us."

"If they are the ghosts of loved ones, then they are not wicked" she said, reaching up to touch his face. He flinched at the caress, then grasped her hand to press a kiss to her fingertips by way of apology. "Nay," she went on, "they are guardians."


End file.
